Children dig up, break down information on Marion's soil

Courtesy of: Elizabeth LeidholdOne child gets up close and personal with a worm found in a soil sample.

Marion — Marion children learned a little more about the landscape around them on October 25.

Maggie Payne, a scientist with the Natural Resources Department of the United States Department of Agriculture, stopped by the Marion Museum of Natural History on Wednesday to teach the children a little more about what's under their feet.

Payne helped the children create a 'soil profile' for the museum, by taking a vertical sample of soil and investigating the material within the sample.

The children also inventoried the different types of creatures within their soil samples.

Payne also used a rain simulator to show children the effects of rain on different types of soil. Soil that is too well-worked and overused, they found, compacts naturally. Water will then run off the top of the soil, rather than traveling downwards to the plant's roots.

Elizabeth Leidhold, the director of the Marion Natural History Museum, said that the children had a great time learning, and thanked Payne for her expertise.

Maggie Payne with the group of children she spoke to on October 25, and a soil sample from near the Natural History Museum.
(Courtesy of: Elizabeth Leidhold)